‘Big Bang’ does just that for CBS

CBS’ gutsy de­ci­sion to open the night with a sit­com block paid big div­i­dends Thurs­day as “The Big Bang The­ory” — im­ported this sea­son from its old Mon­day berth — rounded up 14 mil­lion view­ers, dom­i­nat­ing its 8 p.m. time slot, ac­cord­ing to the Nielsen Co.

“Big Bang” in turn boosted the pre­miere of “$#*! My Dad Says,” the new Wil­liam Shat­ner com­edy, which like­wise won the 8:30 block with 12.5 mil­lion view­ers, al­though it won’t be clear for some weeks how au­di­ences are re­spond­ing to the se­ries on its own mer­its.

The CBS com­edy freight train left a layer of dust on ev­ery­one else. ABC’s new youth drama “My Gen­er­a­tion” bombed in its pre­miere, con­nect­ing with just 5.2 mil­lion view­ers. NBC’s ri­val com­edy block was stymied: “Com­mu­nity” was held to just 5 mil­lion view­ers and “30 Rock” suf­fered the worst open­ing in its five-year his­tory (5.8 mil­lion).